Crossing Over

First things first: our Kindle and Nook winners from last week’s un-Contest. Congrats to Lou Sancio and Rachel Hope, who will get their new eReaders ASAP—and to the six other lucky devils listed below, who will each get a signed first edition of The Profession. Winners, I’ll e-mail you all personally and we can confer on personalized inscriptions, addresses etc.

Here’s how I picked the winners. We had a big long list on Excel; I scrolled down with my eyes closed, then stopped when I felt the vibes and opened my eyes. Whatever name was beneath the cursor … you won!

Thanks too today to our friend Jeff Sexton of copyblogger and jeffsextonwrites for the piece in today’s left-hand column. It’s an interview with me on the subject of “crossover,” which in this case refers to the two distinct groups of people who read my stuff—novel readers and War of Art/Do The Work readers—but who almost never cross over from one side to the other.

That’s one of the reasons we organized last week’s Kindle and Nook un-Contest (where the Kindle and Nook come loaded with my crossover, non-War of Art stuff) and why we’re offering the audios on this page this week: trying to get fans of The War of Art/Do The Work to take a deep breath, cinch up their bungee cords and leap off the bridge. Cross over to the other side of the Pressfield oeuvre.

I do understand the reluctance. It’s like mixing friends, which almost never works. A few years ago I worked on a movie project called Mister X, from the comic book series. One of the things I loved about the character of Mister X (a depressed, angst-ridden urban superhero who ran a constant fever of 106 degrees) was that he had three different girlfriends, each of whom knew him by a different name and each of whom saw him as a totally different person and had totally different boyfriend/girlfriend issues with him—even though he was the exact same depressed, angst-ridden urban superhero with all of them. It’s hard to mix friends.

In other words, my quest in this space may be folly. Perhaps the twain shall never meet. I promise, after this week, I’ll never try again. But think about it, War of Art friends. Crossing over might actually be fun! Buy two audio books for $9.95.

Congrats again to Rachel Hope and Lou Sancio, who will get their Nook and Kindle right away, and to our winners of signed Professions—Stacy Chambers, Katrina Samples, Alex Melli, Tristian Rivera, Larry Blumenthal and Jason Ford. I’ll be in touch by e-mail this week.

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Begin today

Start with this War of Art [27-minute] mini-course. It's free. The course's five audio lessons will ground you in the principles and characteristics of the artist's inner battle. Continue each week (also free) with our Writing Wednesdays and What It Takes posts, each one like a new chapter in The War of Art. Plus continual videos, freebies, specials and new material throughout the year.

THE WAR OF ART

Read this one first.It identifies the enemy—what I call Resistance with a capital “R,” i.e. fear, self-doubt, procrastination, perfectionism, all the forms of self-sabotage—that stop us from doing our work and realizing our dreams.Start here.Everything else proceeds from this.

I second Andrew. Gates Of Fire is perhaps my favorite book of all time. I gave it to my husband to read, even though he professed to hate anything to do with history (bad school experience)! It’s now one of his top five favorites and he has become obsessed with ancient Greece. If you love being immersed in another time and place, don’t miss it.